Don't let him out

Where the hell did she get this camera? Why does she have it? Okay, maybe I should start from the beginning. Back in the spring of 2009, I was helping my friend move houses and I found a camera in a drawer. Here's the story:

It was the spring of 2009, I was helping my good friend Rebecca move houses after she turned 22. Despite what you'd hear from my town, we weren't dating. We were just really good friends. Even so, I always had the hopes that maybe, just maybe, she liked me. She had just started packing up her stuff a day ago and she called me over for some help loading stuff into boxes.

We started out by loading her music equipment into boxes. Rebecca always dreamed of being a musician, I had listened to her play piano and sing before. She was really good, and I wanted her to follow her dreams. I hoped that wherever she moved, she could further along that dream. She packed up her microphone,                                                synthesizer, and other small instruments. I helped her with her keyboard and her acoustic guitar. She always complemented me for being strong, but in my eyes I wasn't any stronger than her.

After we were done packing most of the stuff upstairs, we stopped to have lunch down in the kitchen. I made us both grilled cheese sandwiches. She thanked me for lunch, and we got back to work, this time I was taking things out of drawers. We started with clothes out of dressers, then I was taking things out of table drawers. Down in the living room, there were two coffee tables with a drawer each by the sofa. I pulled a few things out of the first, a pencil sharpener, a small instruction booklet for an air conditioner, and a bookmark. Rebecca liked to read a lot, so I assumed this was where she read books often.

The second drawer was more interesting. It had electric items. There were a few USB cords, a flashdrive, an extension cord, and to my surprise, a silver digital camera. A Sony Cyber-shot 6.0, to be exact. The camera looked rather new, maybe from a few years earlier. Before I put it in the box, I asked Rebecca if she wanted the pictures off of it.

"I haven't seen that camera before, Harry. Where did you find it?"

I was surprised, I didn't expect a response like that.

"I found it in this coffee table, right here."

Rebecca said that it might have belonged to the previous owners of the house, but it didn't seem likely that an item such as a digital camera would be left behind. As much as my gut told me to leave it alone, I wanted answers. Like an idiot, I turned the camera on to see what was on it. To both my disappointment and relief, the camera didn't turn on. I checked the battery compartment for batteries, and I quickly got an explanation. The batteries were corroded and nasty, I pulled the cover all the way off and slipped the batteries in the trash can. I went to the closet to get some more AA batteries to put inside.

As I put the new batteries inside, I started to feel a little queasy. Obviously, like the oblivious person I was, I told my self it was most likely my lunch that didn't settle with me right. I pressed the power button to turn the camera on, bracing myself for whatever I'd find. The ring around the button lit up green, and the screen came to life as a little chime played. The screen was very blurry, and no matter how much I wiped off the lens, It never got any clearer.

I figured, If I couldn't take any good pictures, I'd go through and see if there were any photos on the camera already. The photos looked pretty standard, just odd choices. There were two pictures of a double rainbow and a kitchen table. Then there was an odd one... a photo of a door slightly open. The door was white with a gold handle, and whatever was beyond the door was a complete mystery, as all that could be seen was pitch blackness.

I ran to Rebecca's bedroom to talk to her and tell her about the picture. As I brought the camera to her, she inspected the photo, but we couldn't tell what at all it really was. Rebecca handed me a cord that fit the camera.

"Here, plug the camera into my laptop. See if you can enlarge the image."

She followed me out into the living room as I reached for her laptop on the shelf. I turned on her computer and readied the cord and camera. I plugged the camera in, and a few seconds later it popped up with a notification that I had just plugged in a new device. I opened the folder for the camera and accessed the photos on the camera. I dragged all four of them to her desktop and closed the folder.

I opened the images in separate viewing tabs and showed her each image. None of the images intrigued her except for the one of the door. As we inspected the image closer, her eyes got larger. She turned to me and yelled,

"That's my basement!"

She got off the sofa and darted to the laundry room. I reluctantly followed close behind. When I found her in the laundry room, she pointed at the basement door. It matched that of the door in the picture. She told me that when she first moved in, the door was locked and she searched almost a year for the key, but had no success.

"Wait a minute," I said pointing at the living room.

I ran back to the sofa and opened the picture of the door back up. I looked up in the corner to see the name of the file. It read, "dontlethimout.jpg" The only thing I could think of was, let who out? I had the horrible thought that maybe someone, or something was in that basement. As I looked back at Rebecca, I'm pretty sure we both were thinking the same thing.

There's only one thing left to do.

I left out the front door and went to the trunk of my car to grab the toolbox out of it. I came back inside with my screwdriver and one by one removed the screws to the door. I slowly peeled back the door and quietly set it on the floor. We both decided to go down together. As we slowly trekked the stairs, we heard faint scratching on the walls. There was no going back. As we made it to the bottom of the stairs, I opened my eyes, ready for the worst. But we saw nothing.

That is, until we looked up. We saw him. He ran up the stairs, looking back at us. Noticing us, he ran back down, screaming a sound I can't describe. We had just made the biggest mistake of our lives.

We let him out.